(10-08-2016 04:26 AM)Mathilda Wrote: If it is so self evident, you should be able to justify why a fertilized chicken egg is not the same organism as the hen that lays it. If you refuse to provide a justification then I shall accuse you of being disingenuous.

The egg and the hen are two individual beings. Individual organisms are continuous. I should not have to explain this to a bio-informatician.

(10-08-2016 04:06 AM)Mathilda Wrote: Why should it be morally wrong that we kill a fertilised egg? It has no central nervous system. It has no ability to feel pain, capacity to suffer or conscious awareness.

In the movie 2001 an Space Odyssey, Hal kills off the scientist that are frozen in their pods. In the state in which they were killed, they had no working nervous system, no capacity to feel pain or conscious awareness. Does that fact justify Hal's actions?

Equivocation. Justify to whom?

(10-08-2016 04:23 AM)Heywood Jahblome Wrote: Personhood is transitory. When you are under general anesthesia you are not a person but rather just a collection of cells on an operating table. Because personhood is so transitory it is not a good delineation of what deserves protection and what doesn't. I believe there are stages of sleep under which a human being ceases to have the qualities of a person....yet I believe they should be morally protected.

I had to take wider view when formulating my morality which is why I chose human being instead of person.

So you have decided by yourself on an arbitrary definition, that a collection of cells has to be part of the human life cycle for it to be protected, but only from the point of conception. Sperm and unfertilised eggs don't count even though they are part of the human life cycle. This arbitrary definition means that you need not protect other cells that are not part of the human life cycle. For example, an entire clone of a human being because it was not part of the human life cycle.

Your arbitrary definition also means that you cannot answer the following questions:

(10-08-2016 04:06 AM)Mathilda Wrote: Is this equal to murdering a fully developed adult? Why? Or why not? How is this different to taking a human off life support who has irrevocable brain damage and will never wake up? Is that murder? Is this different from killing a baby born with no brain?

How do you justify your arbitrary definition that a human being is part of a human life cycle but specifically starts at conception over any other definition of what constitutes a human being?

(10-08-2016 04:26 AM)Mathilda Wrote: If it is so self evident, you should be able to justify why a fertilized chicken egg is not the same organism as the hen that lays it. If you refuse to provide a justification then I shall accuse you of being disingenuous.

The egg and the hen are two individual beings. Individual organisms are continuous. I should not have to explain this to a bio-informatician.

So the egg and the hen are two individual beings. They are separated by distance and a hard shell. Yet a foetus inside a woman is not an individual, it will die if removed from the mother. It is entirely dependent on the mother for nutrients. There is no hard delineation between the foetus and the mother. In fact some foetal cells can migrate from the foetus to the mother.

This shows that your definition of a human being starting at conception as being at odds with your definition of a human also being an individual organism.

(10-08-2016 04:23 AM)Heywood Jahblome Wrote: When you are under general anesthesia you are not a person but rather just a collection of cells on an operating table.

Then in the womb an embryo is a collection of cells, not a person.

(10-08-2016 04:23 AM)Heywood Jahblome Wrote: Because personhood is so transitory it is not a good delineation of what deserves protection and what doesn't. I believe there are stages of sleep under which a human being ceases to have the qualities of a person....yet I believe they should be morally protected.

This is so fucking stupid that I can't even frame a response.

(10-08-2016 04:23 AM)Heywood Jahblome Wrote: I had to take wider view when formulating my morality which is why I chose human being instead of person.